When you could still safely drink water from the streams in the U.S.

In the 1950s and some places into the 1960s you could still drink water from many streams in the U.S., especially in California, Oregon and Washington where I was likely going to be (mostly California but I was born in Seattle and spent my first 4 years there). So, my father who was an outdoorsman taught me how to navigate using land marks like hunters and travelers used for thousands of years before GPS existed.

He also taught me to lay down next to a stream and suck up water directly into my mouth OR to use my hand as a cup and sit or squat next to a stream and fill the cup I made with my right hand and drink it. I was thinking last night that I still 65 years later still cup my hand at the bathroom sink when I finish brushing my teeth to rinse out my mouth with water from the tap. And I wondered how many people just use glasses or cups for this now. But, I still cup my hand to do this and always have since the early 1950s because this is what my father taught me to do while we were in the wilderness somewhere together, often with my mother or cousins or other relatives or friends.

But by the 1970s and 1980s it was no longer safe to do this anywhere and I always felt this was a great loss (sort of like the loss of freedom I felt when I was forced to wear seat belts in a car or truck or a helmet while riding a motorcycle by 1989 or 1990 here in California and Hawaii).

But, as time goes by everything changes and so must we to survive it all any way that we can.